Abortion was one of the few issues where Vice President Kamala Harris had an advantage during the 2024 election cycle, and it was the only issue she could discuss with any confidence. As a result, she emphasized it at every opportunity, warning voters that President-elect Donald Trump would push for a national abortion ban, despite his repeated assurances that he would not.
Harris’s relentless fearmongering over women’s access – or rather, the loss of access – to abortion if Trump won apparently resonated with some women. As a result, many young women came to believe that a Trump victory would not only end their access to abortion but also to birth control.
Indeed, the number of young women posting woeful messages on social media about losing their reproductive rights since the election has been astounding. The day after the election, one 20-something posted a photo of herself on Instagram looking absolutely wretched. She wrote: “I am tired. My heart hurts. I just spent $300+ on OTC birth control and Plan B for the next year or so to be prepared for all of my rights to be taken away. I will not back down, but I am exhausted. I just booked an appointment at Planned Parenthood before it disappears. WTF are we doing America?”
As extreme as it sounds, some women who fell for the Democrats’ scare tactics have gone so far as to opt for sterilization. This idea is not entirely new. It began to circulate after the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in June 2022.
Newsweek recently interviewed five women who have either already undergone sterilization or have scheduled the procedure.
One 39-year-old woman from Washington state, who wished to remain anonymous, told Newsweek she “underwent a bilateral salpingectomy, in which her fallopian tubes were removed.”
She said, “I am not happy that I felt forced into a surgery I did not want to alter my body, I feel like the election tied my hands and forced me to be sterilized—that is horrible.”
According to Newsweek, “Since she was a child, she has known she does not want children. She and her husband, who had a vasectomy in 2021, both felt that they had experienced too much trauma as children themselves to be the parents they wanted to be.”
She claimed she had “paid way too much attention to the vitriol Trump repeatedly spit during his previous term and am keenly aware of the people he keeps around him and in his ear, who all seem to see women as incubators and possessions to subjugate.”
She said she scheduled her surgery in October:
[She was] fully planning to cancel the surgery the day after the election, assuming Kamala won.With Trump’s victory, we quickly learned that my choice to cancel the surgery had been taken from me. We both believed that I had no choice but to proceed to ensure that I can protect my health should I be assaulted during a Trump presidency, should my husband’s vasectomy fail and/or should my hormonal birth control become inaccessible.This isn’t a wanted procedure, but one of necessity due to the politics and subjugation coming our way.
Lydia Echols from Texas, 28, told Newsweek she is scheduled for surgery. Echols said:
The next four years will go in the way of the Christian nationalists if what I have seen and heard and experienced is to be believed. Anyone who has…taken a look at the social tirade Donald Trump encouraged and employed during his years in the office knows that this is the time to prepare and be prudent for what could yet come.I’d rather be safe than sorry.
Morgan Wood, a 24-year-old Georgia woman, feels that sterilization “is the only option.” She told Newsweek she “never wanted children” and had struggled with “serious gynecologic issues … since middle school.” She added that she “felt pretty certain that my body could not handle a pregnancy, even if I did have some huge change of mind and want kids, and after these experiences.”
Regarding Trump’s victory, Wood said:
I have no idea what Trump will and won’t follow through on. I was already upset when Roe v Wade was overturned. Living in the South, our prospects for protections and resources aren’t great if they aren’t otherwise ensured.But talks of complicating the birth control and abortion access processes even further made this feel like the only option. I need everything handled, and ideally before power begins shifting.
Ashley Hedden, 36-year-old woman from Kentucky, “who is asexual (she does not experience sexual attraction)” worries that if she were to be raped and become pregnant, she would “be forced to carry the result of a man’s violence against my will.”
She said,”I have seen that this country will not protect people that can get pregnant, and have seen the reports of the deaths of pregnant women that were refused medical care. I refuse to be a person that ends up not being able to get medical care just because I own a uterus with some cells growing in it.”
And finally, there was Eden Ixora, a 25-year-old woman from Florida, who has made a “firm decision” to have sterilization surgery. Ixora claimed, “All the political noise is what really finalized my decision for me. It wasn’t just Trump winning but rather all the online rhetoric that followed.”
“For me it was a call to action,” Ixora added. “A need to get this locked in so I don’t have to live in fear that at any moment some random guy can completely destroy my life. For me the idea of getting pregnant is worse than death. I’m doing what I can to protect my right to choose. I am choosing me.”
When Newsweek pointed out Trump’s on the record denials of a national abortion ban, the women replied as follows:
The woman from Washington: Trump lied through his teeth repeatedly and consistently through his previous term. There is so much documentation of him saying one thing then doing another.Lydia Echols: “I am no fool. The men behind [Trump] will push for whatever they think is right and will lube Trump’s ears with what he so desperately craves in return—power and attention. I do not trust a word that man says, but I know the men (and women) behind him will stay true to their word.”Morgan Wood: “I generally don’t trust politicians, but I especially don’t trust Trump. He is notoriously bad at keeping his story straight.”Ashley Hedden: “I do not think Trump has an honest bone in his body. I have seen enough of Donald that I understand he says whatever he needs to say in the moment.”Eden Ixora: Told author she was “not worried about ‘one specific proposal’ but ‘the overall societal temperature and the fact that we as a group have even allowed it to get this far where women’s reproductive choices are not considered rights.'”
These five women are a testament to the power of propaganda. They firmly believe that Trump will take away their access to abortion. How will they feel in four years when they realize they’ve been lied to all along?
Elizabeth writes commentary for The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation and a member of the Editorial Board at The Sixteenth Council, a London think tank. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY